This actually was all prompted by the Northwest flight 188 incident. Given, nobody died in that incident, but most people still consider it a pretty scary scenario.
Also, there have been crashes caused by distractions-- I recall one where the flight crew was so obsessed with finding the cause of a landing gear failure light that they neglected to check the autopilot settings, or pay attention to the altimeter, and the plane crashed as a result. (In fact, IIRC, they actually bumped the autopilot in the wrong position while turning around in the seat to discuss the landing gear situation.)
I didn't realize there was a "the" goal. My goal certainly doesn't have anything to do with patents. (It does care about expense, but that's not a 1:1 relationship.)
Even if you're right (and we'll probably just have to agree to disagree on that) he still replied as if it was a literal statement, which is at best extremely irritating.
BTW, my dismissal of his opinion is mostly: 1) because the blurb says it was well-written when I believe it clearly is not. I expected it at least to be entertaining. 2) I really don't give a flying rat's ass about the OGG format.
Neither of which is really the author's fault. So there you have it.
Since I'm on a bit of a soapbox, I'd also like to address this:
Detailed documentation (or the lack thereof) is vitally important, however it has little to do with the container design itself. Mr. Rullgard claims to establish that Ogg is badly flawed, not that it needs more documentation.
Not having adequate documentation *is a flaw*. I find it incredible that anybody working with file formats would argue otherwise.
It's not well-written at all. He responds to obvious jokes with indignant corrections. For example, this one:
32.
Generality
33.
34.
Ogg, legend tells, was designed to be a general-purpose container
35.
format.
"Legend tells us"? Ogg is not a dramatic, unknowable mystery shrouded in the mists of time. I designed it. I'm alive and willing to answer any questions about the format. Allow me this opportunity to reiterate that Ogg was designed as a general purpose container.
(Sorry about the formatting-- he also formatted quotes from the original article like a 1975-era IBM line printer for some retarded reason.)
He has his knickers in a twist over an obvious joke intended to lighten-up the mood of the original article. It makes me sound like a humorless oversensitive prick from the very start. It doesn't help that he feels compelled to respond to things he has no debate over, like the format of the file header.
Anyway, I stopped reading after the first few pages. He's too uptight and protective to effectively defend the format.
(Cue the obvious: "how would anybody editing Slashdot articles know what 'well-written' looks like?" joke. At least the original article wasn't written by a humorless prick.)
Whatever. I'm not going to tear into your retarded floppy nostalgia, because it's obviously based solely on nostalgia and thus resistant to logical attacks.
Just use a cheap flash drive or email the fucking file like the rest of the planet does.
Someone really ought to let Microsoft know about this... after all, despite three service packs, Windows XP and Server 2003 still requires a floppy drive in order to load drivers for non-standard hardware (including SATA drives not in emulation mode) that will need to be accessed as part of installation.
When's the last you tried this? I installed XP just fine in a SATA-only computer using the SP2 disk.
More to the point, Microsoft does know about this, which is why Vista (which came out well over 3 years ago now) and 7 don't have the same problem.
"no fucking burning": you don't have to start a separate application (such as Nero, InfraRecorder, or Brasero) and create a "new project" to put files on a floppy. Instead, floppies mount like SD cards or USB flash drives (or more accurately vice versa).
What ancient-ass OS are you using that doesn't have built-in CD-R support? Shit, even Windows XP will do that no problem.
If this is a problem for you, maybe you should finally trade-up that Commodore 64, buddy. Join the rest of us in the 21st century.
Still, India has a lot less of a stake in those matters than we do -- they're one of the developing economies getting all of the decent jobs, producing little creative output(in before Slumdog).
Wow, that's like a home run of ignorance. You've literally never heard of Bollywood? India produces more film than possibly any other country... they definitely have the US beat.
Why is this modded anything apart from off-topic? "The web server is dead, and therefore I'm going to rant about something that has absolutely nothing to do with the summary whatsoever."
I must have missed the memo when the deed to the Mir was signed over to the US?
That said, we did let Skylab crash and burn, but Skylab was a bad hack to start with-- was up longer than it should have been. (Arguably the Mir was, too, but Mir was much more culturally significant.)
Well, the mantra of communism is "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." That's... pretty much exactly how open source works.
Unless you can't (or don't) write code. In which case, your contributions are at best ignored, at worst loudly rejected.
(It might be how open source is supposed to work, I wouldn't know about that. But it's certainly not how it works in practice.)
According to a friend of mine who worked at Apple and did a white paper for them on resolution independence, you need ~200 DPI on the display before you can get away with scaling all the UI elements without them jumping around by 1/2 pixels, etc and it being annoying to the user.
Whitepaper or not, that's total bunk. Hasn't he heard of subpixel rendering? The font guys at Apple do that every day, maybe he should talk to them about it. Now, you might use the argument that widgets might become a bit blurry, but they sure wouldn't "jump around" unless you're doing something crazy-wrong.
Also, the iPhone doesn't have a 200 DPI screen, so in addition to being conceptually wrong, you're factually wrong. Apple's own webpage says it's 163: http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html
Besides, even if icons "jumped around" by half a pixel, why can't I set the DPI in OS X anyway and just decide to take that risk? Could it be because (gasp) Apple doesn't have the fucking feature working yet, despite talking about it since 10.2? Ask your friend what the hold-up is... we all saw a mostly-working demo in the 10.3 dev tools, where's the finished feature?
Second this. Vista / Windows 7 were both scheduled to handle resolution-independent UI rendering, and neither of them can. Until the OS can render icons at 3/4ths of an inch at super-high DPI, most people will want a screen appropriately sized for their inputs. Similarly, web pages and other rendering will need to be resolution-independent... though the OS comes first.
Have you tried it in Vista/Windows 7? It's really, really good... I'm not sure exactly how they could improve it, frankly, except maybe increasing the possible magnification factor. (IIRC, it stops at 200% now.) Whenever I see complaints like yours, I have to kind of wonder if you've actually tried using the feature, or if you're just ranting from habit...
Either way, I think you're being really unfair, especially compared to Apple who has been promising the same thing in OS X since version freakin' 10.2 and hasn't shown the teeniest bit of progress in all that time.
Make sure you turn off "XP-style DPI scaling" when you set it-- the XP-style scaling still leaves layout up to the app, which is why apps that don't use native layout tools (like Adobe apps and GTK+ apps) will still look correct.
The icon thing is fixed; Windows now allows ridiculously-large icons for that problem, up to 256x256 pixels. Getting third-party apps to *use* that feature is more of a challenge, as with everything in Windows-- for some reason, third-party Windows developers seem to be entirely ignorant of the capabilities of the OS they're writing for. They still think they're writing for Windows 95, I guess. Frucking annoying.
Also, the DPI scaling mode in Windows Vista and 7 "fakes out" the app, so the app thinks it's running at 96 DPI, but everything it puts on the screen is actually being magnified by the OS. So it actually works pretty well, even for retarded app-writers.
(When you set your DPI, make sure you uncheck the box that says "XP-style DPI setting". If that's checked, it'll do what XP does and just magnify the fonts and leave layout to the program.)
The capability in OS X has been "next version, you'll see" for about 3 versions now. I think I first heard that it was being implemented for 10.3.
The Windows support for DPI changing in Vista and Windows 7 is actually quite good. It's still a bit hidden, but the majority of apps cope with it pretty well.
Why aren't we all using WQUXGA, WHSXGA, or even WHUXGA display right now?
Hopefully regardless of our opinions of pixel density, we can *all* agree to STOP USING THOSE RETARDED ABBREVIATIONS. How is a mortal human being supposed to know what the holy shit "WHUXGA" means in a practical sense? Just give us the actual resolution (in NUMBERS) and call it good. Thank you.
Ahem.
Anyway, I agree with your general sentiment about OS support for high-res displays, although it's getting much better. Progress has been slow. Maybe in another 5-10 years it literally will not matter what your DPI is, and desktops will all look the same regardless.
I also want to add that is Pete Brown wants higher-res displays, he's perfectly welcome to start up a business providing same and seeing how well he does. If he's right, and there's a huge demand for these, he'll make a killing. (My guess is he's not and there isn't and he'll go broke.)
Slashdot Mirror
"Well, it worked for me, so everybody else should be forced by law to do the same thing!"
This actually was all prompted by the Northwest flight 188 incident. Given, nobody died in that incident, but most people still consider it a pretty scary scenario.
Also, there have been crashes caused by distractions-- I recall one where the flight crew was so obsessed with finding the cause of a landing gear failure light that they neglected to check the autopilot settings, or pay attention to the altimeter, and the plane crashed as a result. (In fact, IIRC, they actually bumped the autopilot in the wrong position while turning around in the seat to discuss the landing gear situation.)
(Lengthy search) Ah, found it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Airlines_Flight_401
I didn't realize there was a "the" goal. My goal certainly doesn't have anything to do with patents. (It does care about expense, but that's not a 1:1 relationship.)
Even if you're right (and we'll probably just have to agree to disagree on that) he still replied as if it was a literal statement, which is at best extremely irritating.
BTW, my dismissal of his opinion is mostly:
1) because the blurb says it was well-written when I believe it clearly is not. I expected it at least to be entertaining.
2) I really don't give a flying rat's ass about the OGG format.
Neither of which is really the author's fault. So there you have it.
Since I'm on a bit of a soapbox, I'd also like to address this:
Detailed documentation (or the lack thereof) is vitally important, however it has little to do with the container design itself. Mr. Rullgard claims to establish that Ogg is badly flawed, not that it needs more documentation.
Not having adequate documentation *is a flaw*. I find it incredible that anybody working with file formats would argue otherwise.
It's not well-written at all. He responds to obvious jokes with indignant corrections. For example, this one:
(Sorry about the formatting-- he also formatted quotes from the original article like a 1975-era IBM line printer for some retarded reason.)
He has his knickers in a twist over an obvious joke intended to lighten-up the mood of the original article. It makes me sound like a humorless oversensitive prick from the very start. It doesn't help that he feels compelled to respond to things he has no debate over, like the format of the file header.
Anyway, I stopped reading after the first few pages. He's too uptight and protective to effectively defend the format.
(Cue the obvious: "how would anybody editing Slashdot articles know what 'well-written' looks like?" joke. At least the original article wasn't written by a humorless prick.)
Whatever. I'm not going to tear into your retarded floppy nostalgia, because it's obviously based solely on nostalgia and thus resistant to logical attacks.
Just use a cheap flash drive or email the fucking file like the rest of the planet does.
Someone really ought to let Microsoft know about this... after all, despite three service packs, Windows XP and Server 2003 still requires a floppy drive in order to load drivers for non-standard hardware (including SATA drives not in emulation mode) that will need to be accessed as part of installation.
When's the last you tried this? I installed XP just fine in a SATA-only computer using the SP2 disk.
More to the point, Microsoft does know about this, which is why Vista (which came out well over 3 years ago now) and 7 don't have the same problem.
"no fucking burning": you don't have to start a separate application (such as Nero, InfraRecorder, or Brasero) and create a "new project" to put files on a floppy. Instead, floppies mount like SD cards or USB flash drives (or more accurately vice versa).
What ancient-ass OS are you using that doesn't have built-in CD-R support? Shit, even Windows XP will do that no problem.
If this is a problem for you, maybe you should finally trade-up that Commodore 64, buddy. Join the rest of us in the 21st century.
Still, India has a lot less of a stake in those matters than we do -- they're one of the developing economies getting all of the decent jobs, producing little creative output(in before Slumdog).
Wow, that's like a home run of ignorance. You've literally never heard of Bollywood? India produces more film than possibly any other country... they definitely have the US beat.
Rock on!
Can we customize cars with rusty iron spikes and race around in crazy homemade armor to defend our city powered by pig offal?
First provide one for your subject line.
Why is this modded anything apart from off-topic? "The web server is dead, and therefore I'm going to rant about something that has absolutely nothing to do with the summary whatsoever."
Good work, mods.
I guess this guy just found out about them?
Yah, I also was using iFrames to pass data around long before the term "AJAX" was coined.
I know who you really are, Bob Cat NYMPHS-- or should I say Bobcat Goldthwait. Your clever Slashdot name isn't fooling me!
Go back into the 80s where you belong!
Use a staged plan:
Week 1: Set each developer across from a failed 80s comedian. Yakov Smirnoff, Carrottop, Gilbert Gottfried.
Week 2: Remove the comedian.
Note that regardless of your seating arrangement, you'll get an unimaginable boost in productivity during week two.
I must have missed the memo when the deed to the Mir was signed over to the US?
That said, we did let Skylab crash and burn, but Skylab was a bad hack to start with-- was up longer than it should have been. (Arguably the Mir was, too, but Mir was much more culturally significant.)
I'm glad he specified that. I wasn't sure what he was talking about with just a simple "Mona Lisa".
Journalists usually have a minimum word-count to reach before their article can be published. Look how many words that added!!
Well, the mantra of communism is "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." That's... pretty much exactly how open source works.
Unless you can't (or don't) write code. In which case, your contributions are at best ignored, at worst loudly rejected.
(It might be how open source is supposed to work, I wouldn't know about that. But it's certainly not how it works in practice.)
who the
fuck taught you to
type? your
line spacing is the
strangest thing i've ever seen and
your reluctance to use punctuation and the
shift key (except for one comma that
snuck through) boggles the
mind
According to a friend of mine who worked at Apple and did a white paper for them on resolution independence, you need ~200 DPI on the display before you can get away with scaling all the UI elements without them jumping around by 1/2 pixels, etc and it being annoying to the user.
Whitepaper or not, that's total bunk. Hasn't he heard of subpixel rendering? The font guys at Apple do that every day, maybe he should talk to them about it. Now, you might use the argument that widgets might become a bit blurry, but they sure wouldn't "jump around" unless you're doing something crazy-wrong.
Also, the iPhone doesn't have a 200 DPI screen, so in addition to being conceptually wrong, you're factually wrong. Apple's own webpage says it's 163: http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html
Besides, even if icons "jumped around" by half a pixel, why can't I set the DPI in OS X anyway and just decide to take that risk? Could it be because (gasp) Apple doesn't have the fucking feature working yet, despite talking about it since 10.2? Ask your friend what the hold-up is... we all saw a mostly-working demo in the 10.3 dev tools, where's the finished feature?
Second this. Vista / Windows 7 were both scheduled to handle resolution-independent UI rendering, and neither of them can. Until the OS can render icons at 3/4ths of an inch at super-high DPI, most people will want a screen appropriately sized for their inputs. Similarly, web pages and other rendering will need to be resolution-independent... though the OS comes first.
Have you tried it in Vista/Windows 7? It's really, really good... I'm not sure exactly how they could improve it, frankly, except maybe increasing the possible magnification factor. (IIRC, it stops at 200% now.) Whenever I see complaints like yours, I have to kind of wonder if you've actually tried using the feature, or if you're just ranting from habit...
Either way, I think you're being really unfair, especially compared to Apple who has been promising the same thing in OS X since version freakin' 10.2 and hasn't shown the teeniest bit of progress in all that time.
Make sure you turn off "XP-style DPI scaling" when you set it-- the XP-style scaling still leaves layout up to the app, which is why apps that don't use native layout tools (like Adobe apps and GTK+ apps) will still look correct.
The icon thing is fixed; Windows now allows ridiculously-large icons for that problem, up to 256x256 pixels. Getting third-party apps to *use* that feature is more of a challenge, as with everything in Windows-- for some reason, third-party Windows developers seem to be entirely ignorant of the capabilities of the OS they're writing for. They still think they're writing for Windows 95, I guess. Frucking annoying.
Also, the DPI scaling mode in Windows Vista and 7 "fakes out" the app, so the app thinks it's running at 96 DPI, but everything it puts on the screen is actually being magnified by the OS. So it actually works pretty well, even for retarded app-writers.
(When you set your DPI, make sure you uncheck the box that says "XP-style DPI setting". If that's checked, it'll do what XP does and just magnify the fonts and leave layout to the program.)
The capability in OS X has been "next version, you'll see" for about 3 versions now. I think I first heard that it was being implemented for 10.3.
The Windows support for DPI changing in Vista and Windows 7 is actually quite good. It's still a bit hidden, but the majority of apps cope with it pretty well.
Why aren't we all using WQUXGA, WHSXGA, or even WHUXGA display right now?
Hopefully regardless of our opinions of pixel density, we can *all* agree to STOP USING THOSE RETARDED ABBREVIATIONS. How is a mortal human being supposed to know what the holy shit "WHUXGA" means in a practical sense? Just give us the actual resolution (in NUMBERS) and call it good. Thank you.
Ahem.
Anyway, I agree with your general sentiment about OS support for high-res displays, although it's getting much better. Progress has been slow. Maybe in another 5-10 years it literally will not matter what your DPI is, and desktops will all look the same regardless.
I also want to add that is Pete Brown wants higher-res displays, he's perfectly welcome to start up a business providing same and seeing how well he does. If he's right, and there's a huge demand for these, he'll make a killing. (My guess is he's not and there isn't and he'll go broke.)